2008 Year in Review

Well it’s been an interesting year, here at Xasáuan Today. We’ve looked at the Monterey Peninsula’s water supply problems and picked apart the county’s transportation dilemma. We’ve questioned development on eroding beaches and dissected the Light Brown Apple Moth. We’ve chimed in on local political issues. We’ve gone on some bike rides, examined some mushrooms, and even found time for a visit to Pat Springs.

But nothing gets attention quite like a fire.

Measure Z Fails

Way back in February, we took a fairly thorough look into the things that make a transportation sales tax measure successful

Rage Against the Bike: Why Cyclists Run Stop Signs

Sharing the Road

As cyclists, we’re often surprised at how many of the non-cyclists we meet consider themselves experts on cycling safety.

More Impact Fee Antics

We wrote in February about the City of Salinas trying to kill Monterey County’s long overdue regional development impact fee by linking it to the (highly unlikely) passage of a transportation sales tax measure. Since then, things have only gotten stranger

More Dark Days for TAMC’s Sales Tax

Only a few days ago, we pointed out how the Transportation Agency of Monterey County (TAMC) is driving their campaign bandwagon off course and why their chances of actually passing a transportation sales tax measure in November are diminishing.

We noted that transportation sales tax measures too heavily focused on road projects are failing at the polls and deplored TAMC’s short-sightedness in deleting rail funding from their measure at the ill-considered request of the Farm Bureau.

Now, a new battle over linking a regional development impact fee to the passage of the measure threatens to send TAMC’s plans completely into the ditch.

Raise High the Sales Tax, Road Builders

The Transportation Agency of Monterey County (TAMC) is nothing if not persistent. Although efforts to raise the sales tax to pay for transportation projects were rejected by County voters in 1992, 1998 and, most recently, in 2006, they are once again preparing a sales tax measure for the ballot. Today we take a look at what it takes to win a transportation sales tax election and at how TAMC’s current effort has headed off the tracks.